January is the perfect time to revisit what’s hot—and what’s not—in knowledge management. New tools and techniques crop up all the time, but trends can quickly fizzle out if they don’t deliver the results their proponents promise. So, what’s trending right now, and what does it tell us about the…
2019 is here, and it’s time to put your knowledge management (KM) program on track for success. To do this, you’ll need a documented and actionable KM strategic plan. We all know that strategic planning is essential to the success of any business program or initiative. And yet, most of us are all…
Whenever I meet a person for the first time, invariable, the “what do you do for work” question comes up. I have tried over the years to succinctly describe what we do at APQC, and what role(s) I play. However, sometimes my description doesn’t always excite them, so the follow up…
Virtual teaming promises amazing opportunities, but it can also create big problems. When employees don’t meet face-to-face, they sometimes hesitate to trust one another and collaborate. Flexible virtual teams, where team members come and go during different project phases, can struggle to…
Measurement has always been a divisive topic in KM. Some knowledge managers insist that anecdotal evidence is more powerful than data and that the energy involved in calculating KM’s business impact would be better spent improving the organization’s KM offerings. This attitude is understandable. It…
Virtual teams have become the new normal. But with so many organizations currently engaged in digital transformations, the virtual teams of tomorrow are going to be different from those of today. The transition to a more digital workplace will bring new tools, new priorities, and new ways of…
Executives are very busy people. They can also be skeptical when it comes to new initiatives, especially when they can’t immediately see how an investment will translate to the bottom line. That’s a big factor in why it’s so hard for knowledge management teams to get leaders on their side, much…
I, along with my colleague Lauren Trees, recently interviewed 21 organizations applying artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) internally and found that the organizations that had made the most progress, had the most experimentation, and were having the most successful AI…
There is an AI/automation arms race underway between the big players—IBM, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Facebook – and knowledge management is the beneficiary. Turns out, KM tasks such as content management, tagging, search, and expertise location are good targets for AI and might really…
Motivating employees to share and reuse knowledge has always been the holy grail of knowledge management. But what actually convinces people to change their habits and incorporate KM into their daily activities—to join a community, answer questions in an online forum, post and edit content, or…